Monday, January 10, 2005

Here is a fascinating piece from "USA Today." Titled "Character Issue Puts Dems on the Defensive," it discusses how and why, in the author's view, the "character issue" has been used so effectively against Democratic presidential candidates.

Some theories that are discussed include: The Democratic candidates know the attacks are so ridiculous that they make the mistake of not taking them seriously and they underestimate the importance the American people place on character in the first place.

But what's most amazing is what the piece doesn't say, and it's the key point: Democrats cannot talk about character, because doing so implies some degree of what Democrats love pejoratively to term (gasp!) "judgmentalism." Because the Democrat party has become so completely the party of moral relativism, and because important chunks of its constituency will not tolerate any discussion of morality/virtue/good/evil, the Democrats have been effectively silenced on the character issue. That's what the story should have explained -- but didn't.

1 Comments:

Carol, I had a similar impression when reading this article. This piece is so typical of the denial that liberals are in right now. They claim they lost because the Republican attack dogs so viciously destroyed Kerry's character when in fact he had no character to stand on. The reason Democrats lose (at least in major elections) is that they don't know what they stand for. They come across as moral relavists who lack conviction. Voters are smart enough to see through this and will always gravitate towards candidates who take strong stands on issues regardless of whether they agree with the candidate or not.